


Razor's Edge

by Crunchysunrises



Category: Naruto
Genre: Community: cottoncandy_bingo, Community: kink_bingo, Facial Shaving, First Time, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-14 20:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crunchysunrises/pseuds/Crunchysunrises
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kisame and Itachi become partners within Akatsuki when Itachi is thirteen. Sooner or later, Itachi is going to need a shave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Razor's Edge

**Author's Note:**

>   
> **Title:** Razor's Edge  
>  **Fandom:** Naruto  
>  **Rating:** G  
>  **Content Notes:** None  
>  **Disclaimer:** I have no rights or claims to the Naruto franchises, trademarks, copyrights, or characters. This is for fun, not profit.  
>  **Summary:** Kisame and Itachi become partners within Akatsuki when Itachi is thirteen. Sooner or later, Itachi is going to need a shave.  
>  **Additional Notes:** Written for the "Being Helped" square on my Cotton Candy bingo card and the "shaving/depiliation" square on my 2011 Kink Bingo card.

When Kisame meets Itachi, the boy is thirteen and crazy.

Itachi is small and skinny for his age, or at least smaller and skinnier than Kisame was at thirteen. His eyes are too wide, his hands are too steady, and his cheeks are as smooth as any girl's. In fact, if Leader had not called Itachi a _'young man'_ then Kisame would have thought that he was partnering a kunoichi. Or, more accurately, being followed around and stared at by a small, murderous, dangerously unbalanced, and freakishly silent little girl with baleful eyes and absolutely no discernible facial expressions.

Turning his back on Itachi makes the small hairs on the back of Kisame's neck stand up.

Sleeping next to Itachi is an exercise in waiting until one of them is too exhausted to stay awake. When Itachi is the one who collapses from exhaustion, Kisame sleeps secure in the knowledge that he has the upper hand. When Kisame is the one who collapses from exhaustion, Kisame slides into oblivion secure in the knowledge that nothing else was physically possible. Plus, the exhaustion prevents Itachi from being restless or allows Kisame to ignore Itachi's nighttime restlessness and his staring red eyes.

 

 

When Itachi is fourteen, he has patches of peach fuzz down his temples and under his chin. That is also the year that Itachi allows Kisame to see an actual facial expression. It is the creepiest little smirk that Kisame has ever seen. Cats probably smirk like that when they toyed with mice before the cats slowly dismember the mice, piece by piece, while the mice are still alive and screaming.

Kisame shudders.

When he sees what is left of the missing nin that they were hunting, Kisame is grateful not to be on the receiving end of Itachi's smirk.

 

 

Itachi is fifteen when his peach fuzz starts darkening. Kisame occasionally catches Itachi thoughtlessly rubbing his pale fingertips back and forth, back and forth over the fuzz under his jaw. The perfect red polish on Itachi's bitten nails looks bright against the fine, dark hairs on the angle of his jaw and the underside of his chin.

About the same time, Itachi develops a second expression. Kisame names it Itachi's 'I Have Discovered Masturbation' smirk. It is entirely different from his 'I Am A Cat' smirk. This one is larger, calmer, and more relaxed. Kisame would even call it... pleasant.

 

 

Kisame, who has learned to sleep in front of Itachi, wakes up to find his partner studying himself in Kisame's shaving mirror. He tilts his head back and forth, as if he is looking for a particular angle on his face. In his other hand, Itachi is gripping a kunai.

Kisame has been shaving for over a decade and not even he is foolish enough to shave with a kunai. Its shape is all wrong for such a delicate task. Mental images of Itachi accidentally peeling his face off, or just cutting it all to hell, jolt Kisame into wakefulness.

"Don't! You'll hack your face off! With your personality, that's all you've got going for you with the girls."

The corners of Itachi's mouth turned down into Itachi's version of a grimace.

 _"This,"_ he said, rasping his fingernail against his bristles, "is very annoying."

His fingertip travels up his throat, under his jaw,over the point of his chin, and over the curve of his cheek.

"Just... Wait a minute. I'll do it for you and we'll get you a safety razor in the next village."

Itachi grimaces again. "A beginner's razor?"

"You'll cut yourself up well enough with that."

 

 

When Kisame gets back from making himself feel more human, he finds that Itachi has already mixed the lather, sharpened Kisame's straight razor, and found a comfortable position against a log. When Kisame straddles the log near Itachi's head, Itachi immediately slouches down and bares his throat to Kisame. He lies very still, his eyelids closed over his sharingan eyes.

The sight of it does odd things to Kisame's stomach.

Ignoring his hunger pangs, Kisame circles the lather brush in the cup. The low _thunk-clunk thick-click_ of the base of its whalebone handle against the wooden cup's sides is soothing and familiar. Kisame lathers up Itachi's face with brisk, messy strokes that brush lather over one of Itachi's earlobes and the curve of his nostrils. When Kisame judges the layer of lather to be thick enough, he puts the cup and brush aside and takes up the razor.

Kisame's razor is a wide rectangular piece of metal at the end of a narrower rectangular strip of metal. Only one side of the wide rectangle, the long, free hanging side, is edged and sharpened. When not in use, the razor folds neatly away into a whalebone handle. That handle, and the handle of the lather brush, have both been passed down in Kisame's family for generations. On the verge of a new, and somewhat unsettling experience, the feel of the razor's handle and the weight of its blade are familiar and reassuring in Kisame's hand.

Shaving Itachi's face is dissimilar from shaving his own. The angles are different, the contours are alien, and Itachi is so trusting that it makes Kisame's teeth ache. But the _raaaaasp_ of the razor against Itachi's black bristles and the click of the razor again the side of the lather cup are familiar and soothing. And watching the straight edge of the razor flash silver, the white lather bunch against the blade, and strips and stripes of Itachi's cleared skin emerge from beneath lather is oddly fascinating.

Throughout the process, Itachi is still and relaxed as if the idea that Kisame could accidentally cut his throat has never crossed Itachi's mind. Kisame, who is still somewhat nervous, thinks about it often.

Despite everything, Kisame's hand remains steady and he never so much as cuts Itachi during his shave.

When Itachi's face and throat are smooth and cleared of any stray hairs, Kisame folds the razor away and wipes the smudges of lather off of Itachi's face with the hand towel from Kisame's pack. Then he stuffs the bit of cloth and a small bottle of aftershave into Itachi's hand.

"Go rinse your face off and splash some of this on."

Itachi opens his eyes, sits up, and runs a hand over his cheek.

"Smooth." For Itachi, he sounds happy. "Thank you, Kisame. Will you do it again tomorrow?"

"You won't need it tomorrow," Kisame says as he goes about cleaning up. He still has to shave himself, after all. "It doesn't grow everyday at the beginning."

"So I don't need to get a safety razor in the very next village." Kisame could almost swear that Itachi is trying to wheedle. "We could wait until the right razor comes along."

"Safety razors aren't like swords. They're all the same."

"Oh." Itachi sounds almost disappointed at the fungibility of a mass produced commodity. "Too bad."

"They come in different colors," Kisame finally offers. "We'll wait and find one that you like."

Itachi smirks. The expression falls somewhere between his 'Cat' smirk and his 'I Have Recently Gotten Myself Off' smirk. Kisame ruthlessly suppresses a shudder.

"Thank you, Kisame."


End file.
